Porn Studio Sues Tube Site, Wants $1.35M

San Francisco-based gay adult entertainment company Titan Media has sued aptly named free video streaming site Monstercocktube.com and its two German founders for copyright infringements, demanding $1.35 million in damages, according to a report from adult industry magazine Xbiz.

Titan is alleging that the duo has been distributing nine of its movies without its consent. One of the titles was apparently watched more than 20,000 times. The lawsuit also alleges that the site’s administrators have tried to conceal their identity through an offshore company. Monstercocktube has apparently recently been renamed to the equally descriptive Monstercockland.com.

The site is one of many YouTube-like adult video sites that are commonly know as “tube sites” within the adult business. These sites supposedly cater to viewers interested in exchanging user-generated content, but many feature unlicensed excerpts of professionally produced porn movies — a problem for an industry whose products are oftentimes only watched for a few minutes at a time.

Titan’s lawsuit isn’t the first time a porn studio has tried to confront the operators of such a tube site in court. Vivid filed a lawsuit against the Adult Entertainment Broadcasting Network (AEBN) in late 2007 for its free x-rated streaming site Pornotube.com. However, that lawsuit was withdrawn only ten months later, and Pornotube is now mostly featuring short promotional clips, with an option to pay for accessing full movies.

It’s doubtful that Titan will have similar success with its lawsuit against Monstercocktube. The site’s owners have apparently responded that they can’t be tried under U.S. law, and Xbiz is reporting that a recent letter sent by the San Francisco federal court was labeled “return to sender.”